Bathroom layout ideas

We're converting our spare room into the new family bathroom and have already had new stud walls built, the floor strengthened and a soil pipe installed in as per building regs. (This is part of a whole house renovation plus extension.)

We're finally ready to fit the bathroom now (originally planned as in the image). But now I'm having doubts and wondering whether we could improve on it.

We want a large separate shower and we have built a recess where that will go. We can fit a standard 1700 long bath in front of the door (down the adjacent wall) - however you would have to turn and walk around the bath when you enter the room, and this feels wrong somehow. I may be overthinking this though!

I'm not sure if we can move the toilet position much (if at all) as the soil pipe is already in place... but nothing else is plumbed for yet.

As well as a separate bath we want storage in the room plus a big radiator to dry towels, but am having trouble getting it all to work... any advice would be much appreciated.

I am wondering if you could rotate the bath by 90 degrees so it has its short side against the loo. This frees up 1m (1700 - 700) on the current bath longer wall for the basin. If you had a 500 wide basin you could fit a tall towel radiator in between the bath and the basin. By doing this you would only get about 700mm for the loo but that is just about enough. (Assuming from the measurements that the loo/basin wall is 2400mm). Also, a sink will not be 700mm deep as the bath is so you will gain space on entering the room.

At a flat we own, the builder put towel rads above the loos in the bathrooms - we cannot reach the top rails! You just need a few more mm to make this work. We have bathroom storage by Duravit at home. Their under sink solutions are very stylish. We also have a lit mirror/cupboard by them over the sink. It is only a few mm deep but takes a lot of bottles, toothpaste, etc. I don't think you can put too much else in here. It will be too cluttered. You do need space to move about.

Thank you Milly - I think you're right. It feels more open with the new layout - the only thing is we would probably need a slightly shorter bath to leave enough space for the toilet. A 160cm long bath would give us 75cm for the toilet. (I don't know if there are any building regs about space around a toilet, but 65cm might feel a bit too tight?)

DH is tall and is reluctant to fit a shorter bath, but he never has baths anyway! He's actually keen on fitting a deep soaking Japanese-style bath (e.g. Omnitub) where you can properly submerge, but I'm not sure how practical that would be for a family bathroom... He wants to put it where the shower is and put a big walk-in shower in the main part of the room.

I'm not sure about the radiator, but a long low one under the window might work... Alternatively there is enough height for the sink/vanity to go under the window.